Utilizing Data

1. Utilizing Data Ben Amsden, Ph.D. Partnerships and Grants Coordinator PSU Center for Rural Partnerships

2. Today’s Topics • Why data is important in a grant application • What grant writers must do • Strategies for integrating data • Common problems/mistakes • Navigate a few sources of data

3. Why Is Data Important? • Inspires confidence! • Effective use of data convinces the funder a need exists grounded in reality methods are appropriate work can be documented findings can be reported problems will be solved

4. What Must Grant Writers Do? • Be relevant • Be accessible & credible • Be consistent • All this, while avoiding “professor speak” “If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudo-scientific theories, superstition, spurious authorities, and classification can be seen as the desperate effort to ‘normalize’ formally the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational, enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.” (Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture)

5. Strategies for Integrating Data • Storytelling throughout multiple sections • Short statements that build Agritourism is a proven lifeline for survival in tough economic times. In Vermont alone, agritourism added $10.5 million to statewide farm income in 2001, an average of $5,000 per farm1. In addition to saving farms, agritourism provides economic support to the regional economy. New Hampshire’s agricultural tourists, for instance, spent an estimated $201 million in 2002, including $26 million for farm products2. This spending resulted in 2,556 full time equivalent jobs, household incomes of $59.2 million, and $19.2 million in state and local government revenues3. 1 http://www.vermontagriculture.com/Agriview/2001/agriv091501.pdf 2 Agricultural Marketing Resource Center, http: www.agmrc.org 3 http://www.nh.gov/agric/divisions/agricultural_development/documents/econimpact.pdf1

6. Strategies for Integrating Data • Outlines, lists, bullets • Relevant and interesting • Lightning is an important issue facing New Hampshire residents. According to the National Association of the Measurement of Meteorological Mishaps: • Only 2 in 5 New Hampshire golfers put away their clubs during a thunderstorm (21%). • Last year, 16 Plymouth residents were struck by lightning, 6 were hospitalized. • Lightning strikes caused $550, 000 worth of damage to New Hampshire homes. • Approximately 120,000 bolts of lightning strike New Hampshire each year, a figure 36% higher than the number of strikes reported by other similarly-sized states. • Therefore, we seek funding for a Lightning Education Seminar to be held on the campus of Plymouth State University.

7. Strategies for Integrating Data • Simple, appropriate tables or graphs • Labels, titles, obvious trends

8. Common Problems • Unclear and inconsistent • Levels (how) and units (what) of analysis • Lack of summary statements • Over-feeding • Undefined terms • Basic errors • No citations • No peer review

9. Navigating Sources of Data • State and local data • http://www.nh.gov/nhes/elmi/ • Demographic data • http://www.census.gov/ • Labor data • http://www.bls.gov/

10. Planning • Keep a notebook of facts, figures • Journal files • Check sites often • Follow curiosity • Storm the fortress

11. Questions? Conversations? PSU Center for Rural Partnerships Russell House 5-3274